determined, but are now made in many shapes and colours to help distinguish different medicines. Tablets are often imprinted with symbols, letters, and numbers, which allow them to be identified, or a groove to allow splitting by hand. Sizes of tablets to be swallowed range from a few millimetres to about a centimetre. Some people, especially younger children, can find swallowing tablets difficult. This is a skill that can be taught, even to relatively young children, in hospital and in community settings.

The compressed tablet is the